Letter: A modest prediction

By John McClurkin, New Bern

Published: Monday, May 6, 2013 at 10:57 AM.

That five young women should die in a burning limousine while only four escape is a horror that defies description. Having lost a teenaged sister-in-law in a car accident myself, I have at least an inkling of the anguish their surviving families are experiencing. I truly extend my deepest and most sincere sympathies to each of them.

Nevertheless, let me be the first to predict that in the classic “never let a crisis go to waste” mode, very soon some sanctimonious, holier-than-thou liberal of the Chuckie Schumer variety will propose legislation to preclude the possibility of such an event ever recurring. After all, to a liberal, if something bad has happened once — despite its rarity — then it “could” happen again, therefore legislation must exist to forbid it. My guess is there will be a demand to ban all “high capacity limousines” and they will be arbitrarily limited to four rounds — um, passengers.

But wait. This “vehicle of mass destruction” wasn’t a firearm, was it? Well then, never mind. Just as liberals never say “boo” about all the other mechanisms which claim so many lives each year — regular non-limo cars, drunk drivers, bathtubs, wading pools, stairs, bare hands, knives, clubs, etc. — this batch of deaths will be of no use to them and thus will be ignored. After all, they aren’t actually trying to save lives, they just need excuses to further their ideological agenda: to demonize and ultimately outlaw firearms. Since the Boston Marathon bombing, I’ve heard no outcry to ban pressure cookers or other bomb ingredients, but had those two fanatics used a Ruger or a Glock or a Bushmaster, you know exactly how liberals’ rantings would read.

John McClurkin,
New Bern

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That five young women should die in a burning limousine while only four escape is a horror that defies description. Having lost a teenaged sister-in-law in a car accident myself, I have at least an inkling of the anguish their surviving families are experiencing. I truly extend my deepest and most sincere sympathies to each of them.

Nevertheless, let me be the first to predict that in the classic “never let a crisis go to waste” mode, very soon some sanctimonious, holier-than-thou liberal of the Chuckie Schumer variety will propose legislation to preclude the possibility of such an event ever recurring. After all, to a liberal, if something bad has happened once — despite its rarity — then it “could” happen again, therefore legislation must exist to forbid it. My guess is there will be a demand to ban all “high capacity limousines” and they will be arbitrarily limited to four rounds — um, passengers.

But wait. This “vehicle of mass destruction” wasn’t a firearm, was it? Well then, never mind. Just as liberals never say “boo” about all the other mechanisms which claim so many lives each year — regular non-limo cars, drunk drivers, bathtubs, wading pools, stairs, bare hands, knives, clubs, etc. — this batch of deaths will be of no use to them and thus will be ignored. After all, they aren’t actually trying to save lives, they just need excuses to further their ideological agenda: to demonize and ultimately outlaw firearms. Since the Boston Marathon bombing, I’ve heard no outcry to ban pressure cookers or other bomb ingredients, but had those two fanatics used a Ruger or a Glock or a Bushmaster, you know exactly how liberals’ rantings would read.